January 2011

January 30, 2011

Today's program really went in depth to examine how Egypt got to the point they are today and what it will mean going forward. Sec. Clinton, Tom Friedman, Fmr. Ambassador Martin Indyk, and a live report from from Cairo by NBC's Richard Engel covered the revolution from all angles.

At the top of the program, I spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to get the official US stance on the issue. She told me the US has been supportive of free and fair elections in Egypt for many years and that she wants, "the Egyptian people to have the chance to chart a new future."

Following a live report from NBC's Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel, I sat down with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell (who recently returned from a trip to the region) told me he hopes that, "at the end of the day, when whatever changes are going to occur, do occur, that we'll still have an important ally."

Then, for a look at the implications this crisis will have on the rest of region, I sat down with Former US Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk. Mr. Indyk told me that the outcome in Egypt will have a "tsunami effect" and that, through social media, we are witnessing a "21st century revolution." You can read the Op-Ed he wrote exclusively for Meet The Press here.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who has covered the region extensively, gave us a break down of how Egypt got to this point. You can catch it here.

As always we finished the program with our political roundtable. You can watch our entire discussion on our website.

Be sure to join us next week when we'll be at the Reagan library in Simi Valley California.

January 29, 2011

Martin Indyk, Director of the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings, wrote a piece about the crisis in Egypt. You can read it here. I'll discuss the article and more with him on Meet The Press tomorrow morning.

I still don't have any power at my house, but the show goes on! So I'm at work and wanted to share some of my reporting after the State of the Union this week. A small group of us met with the President yesterday in the Roosevelt room of the West Wing and he was upbeat after his speech this week but cautious about just how much cooperation he's going to get from Republicans. I would bet that education reform will be a place for bipartisan cooperation but the spending and budget fight will be intense. A lot of this has to do with division on the GOP side. There are enough tea party members or sympathizers particularly in the House who want to cut off government spending and block the President that consensus is going to be hard for GOP leaders to reach. See the Bachman response to the State of the Union address. I can tell you at the White House they are looking to exploit those divisions as they approach 2012.

As for the President, this week's speech reflects a change in approach to the next two years. There is a view that during his first two years, the President got away from telling a story to the American people about where the country was headed. The "winning the future" theme of his address this week was an attempt to get back to a master narrative that will be the theme of the campaign as well. As part of that look for the new team in the West Wing to attempt to insulate the President a bit more from the grind of Washington - particularly legislation.

Sunday, I will track the latest from Egypt and have a conversation with GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell as well as the DNC's Tim Kaine.

The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin had a different take on the speech, she said, " In a nutshell: Obama proposed a ton of new domestic spending, promised to freeze discretionary spending (attained by savaging defense), abstained from offering specifics on entitlement reform and largely ignored major foreign policy changes. Moreover, the delivery was so listless that this State of the Union address likely garnered less applause than any address in recent memory."

Immediate reaction to the speech tonight is that it felt flat. The reaction was polite, but hardly rousing. It seemed hard for the President to feed off the audience even as he offered a speech that was soaring in its approach and reach. I describe it as a call to arms to reclaim American exceptionalism. The President mentioned more than once that there are qualities that set our nation apart from others. He talked more than once about winning the economic future. This was a down payment on his reelection campaign theme which will be how America comes back from near financial collapse stronger than before. It's an optimistic message but one that overlooks how fractious the debate about innovation and competitiveness will be with Republicans in Congress.

The President came into this State of the Union address politically stronger than he's been: a 53 percent approval rating after his Tucson speech and leadership during the lame duck Congress. Tonight we see those same ingredients being mixed. He stands to gain GOP support on education reform, earmarks and tax reform (he called for corporate tax breaks).

But the fight will be over spending. Notice how cautious the President was on Social Security and picking up on the recommendations from the debt commission. A close adviser to the President told me they learned from health care that no party can take on a huge issue like entitlement spending unless and until the other party is on board. Will both parties simply wait each other out on the biggest areas of the federal budget?

Still the most important number tonight was 9.4 percent. That's the jobless rate. How much will it come down by 2012 and will it be enough for voters to credit the President with turning things around? Dating back 62 years when the government first started compiling labor stats, the three times the unemployment rate was higher than 7.4 percent, the President lost reelection.

Two years into his term, President Obama is counting on a different outcome.

I wanted to share some of my reflections from breakfast with Speaker John Boehner this morning. In what some might call a “pre-buttal” to the State of the Union, Speaker Boehner said this president plans to spend more under the guise of investment for growth and competition. The Speaker declared that, “calling for more spending is not a move to the center.”

One of Mr. Boehner’s main issues during the breakfast was spending. The conservative wave of the midterm elections brought with it a majority that is increasingly focused on reducing spending and shrinking the size of government. Speaker Boehner stayed on that message, saying, “There’s no limit to what my team is willing to cut.”

Though, I did detect caution from the Speaker when addressing spending cuts for some of the big-ticket items – specifically Social Security. Mr. Boehner has previously been on the record to support raising the retirement age to 70. However, today he made it clear that it would be up to President Obama to take the lead in addressing the major issues like entitlement reform.

He told us that Congress can’t solve the big problems in our country without first defining them. On Social Security, he said they have yet to define the problem but these programs “won’t exist” if Congress doesn’t act to fix them.

We also discussed how Mr. Boehner turned heads recently for declining to attend a state dinner at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao – a move many referred to as a snub to President Obama. However, the Speaker declared it “comical” that it was being viewed as a snub and said he hasn’t received much outreach from the president. He made it clear that they can definitely work together, however, it did not seem as though the two are very close.

On health care, Speaker Boehner told us that the GOP will look to the courts. Until a decision is made on the Constitutionality of the individual mandate in the bill, he said the GOP will produce targeted bills that address the funding of the plan. According to the Speaker, the bill stands in the way of jobs and “bankrupts the country.”

Finally, an issue that has been largely absent from the discussion is the war in Afghanistan. The Speaker maintained that it is important for the long term security of America which signaled a long-term American presence in the country.

You can see full State of the Union coverage tonight where I’ll be live on NBC with Brian Williams at 9:00. Also, keep an eye on my Twitter feed for updates throughout the night.